tough on crime

I don’t know if it is an intrinsic moral wrong for a government to take life. I don’t know if justice requires that murderers be killed. Those debates are endless and largely fruitless. But I do know that the death penalty will never work, because of this:

A Georgia man is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday for killing a police officer in 1989, even though the case against him has withered in recent years as most of the key witnesses at his trial have recanted and in some cases said they lied under pressure from police.

Anyone who thinks this is an isolated incident is kidding themselves. I’m sure there are people out there who continue to support execution, even after knowing that we have killed dozens of innocent men and women and that, as long as it exists, we will continue to do so. But to me that sentiment is monstrous.